Tag Archive for ‘ADHD’ at The Core Knowledge Blog

A 20-year, $3.2 billion study to be launched in January will track the health of 100,000 American children from before birth to age 21. The National Children’s Study will seek to identify factors behind a host of conditions including autism, learning disabilities, ADHD and obesity.

National Institutes of Health officials say they hope the study, to be conducted at 105 locations throughout the United States, can help pinpoint early-life influences that affect later development, with the goal of learning new ways to treat or prevent illness, Reuters reports.

Researchers will collect genetic and biological samples from people in the study as well as samples from the homes of the women and their babies including air, water, dust and materials used to construct their residences, the NIH said.

The first data from the study could be available in 2012 or 2013.

Here’s an idea that will appeal to every teacher who has had students who can’t sit still (read: every teacher): Stand-up desks.

“As part of a small but growing movement in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota that many teachers say is bound to gain popularity elsewhere, several schools are experimenting with their physical learning environments by incorporating stand-up workstations in the classroom, or, in one school, stability balls instead of traditional school desk chairs,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

Kids who are habitually fidgety or who suffer from attention disorders appear to show the most improvement, teachers tell the paper. Richard Whitmire predicts a rush on orders for the desks.